We visit Black Canyon of Gunnison

Trip Start Apr 18, 2007
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Trip End Oct 16, 2007


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Flag of United States  , Colorado,
Monday, August 13, 2007

We set off eastward on Hwy50 through even more wonderful scenery eventually climbing to the Marshall Pass at 11,300 ft and then down into Gunnison where we found an excellent museum with many period buildings, a steam engine, a huge collection of classic cars.

There was a pioneer cabin, two schools, many carriages - all staffed by volunteer elderly locals. It was probably the best local town museum we've visited.

We managed to get a very mediocre coffee in town and then pressed on to the National Park of Black Canyon which is a mile deep canyon but only a few hundred feet wide. Seems 2 million years ago the incredibly hard gunnison rock was pushed up and the geological events also created volcanos which left a thick crust of volcanic dust 13 stars US flag
13 stars US flag
 . The Gunnison River quickly cut through the dust and "locked-in" the river's course. Unfortunately the rock beneath is dead hard, like really hard...seems the river cuts through a hair's thickness per year, about 10inches per century. Now multiply that by 2 million years and you end up with a narrow cut in the land 1 miles deep.

We'd seen massive black clouds on our journey and now we saw lightening and heard cracks of thunder. We reached the visitors centre just as the rain started and it was HEAVY. We took the opportunity to watch the video and by the time we got out it had stopped raining and we went down to the viewing platform to see these incredible views.

We only stayed a short while as it was getting late and headed off to Ouray (as in "up she rises")...can't explain how good the scenery was driving there - it is called "Switzerland of the USA". We'd visited here before a few years back when we'd missed a road off to Moab and said we'd wanted to re-visit and now quite by chance we were back here.

We have an independent hotel which is small but ok - took a walk around town and then back to our room to prepare for the evening. We found a restuarant on Main Street called The Outlaw with an excellent pianist playing Wild West saloon music. We managed to speak to a couple at the bar whilst waiting for a table - seems his family of Welsh extraction came over in 1643 which was really early.

Got an excellent steak and then back to the room to watch TV-film about the last weeks of Diana's life (which was quite good actually).
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